I’m talking about some of the less expected Bush supporters: the Czechs, the Albanians, the Angela Merkels, the Nicholas Sarkozys, the Ayaan Hirsi Alis, and the Neocons. What all of these people have in common is that they’ve either been complicit in or victims of Communism or Socialism or some other statist ideology (such as Islam, which is statism decked out in religious trappings). People who have lived in and looked into those totalitarian abysses love Bush. They have no truck with the Soros, and Chomskys and Ward Churchills, and even the Hillarys, Obamas and Edwards, of this world, all of whom, in one form or another, and dressed up in pretty language, would like to recreate a United States in which the government, not the citizen, is dominant. And as I’ve pointed out time and time again, governments are utterly without conscience and will invariably end up destroying their citizenries to maintain the power of those who have risen up inside the government bureaucracy.

I was a pagan hippie sympathizing, smart-ass leftist who never really thought about inductive and deductive reasoning for and against socialism, capitalism, or Christianity, until the US faced the crucible of the Battle of Iraq. At that time I came to some degree of political clarity and understanding of the ultimate objective in Iraq, with this rebirth midwifed by BillWhittle, Wretchard, and Bush’s 2005 Inaugural Address. If your progress has been anything like mine, then you’ll be just as sympathetic as I am to the loyalty ex-leftists and the victims of fascism have to Bush’s idealistic vision for Iraq. We realize he has not been as resolute or clear or involved in the national debate as we could wish, yet we have not always been sure of ourselves either. It only proves that he is human, and that he isn’t hyperactive and ingratiating as Bill Clinton was.

The statistics reveal that 1% of the study’s estimated 2.3 million Muslim Americans say that suicide bombings against civilian targets are “often justified” and 7% felt, “sometimes justified.” This demonstrates a potential threat of 184,000 potential Islamist terrorists in the United States. The study does nothing to connect the imminent responsibility of the remaining 92% in changing, deprogramming, and defeating this radical 8%. Moreover, even more concerning is the total 26% of those younger than 30 who even ‘rarely’ find justification for terrorism. Again, we find no questions or conclusions from Pew about the responsibility of the remaining 74% to lead a counter-jihad.

Similarly, 5% of Muslim Americans expressed “somewhat favorable opinions of Al Qaeda”. Yet, only 63% of foreign-born Muslims were able to muster “strong hostility” toward Al Qaeda, with 52% of all native-born Muslims, and a shocking 36% of African American Muslims doing the same. The need for a counter-jihad becomes all the more relevant in this context with such an “underwhelming” majority of Muslims demonstrating the moral courage simply to identify the clearest enemy of America in our time. Certainly, the seeds of leadership in this counter-jihad will come from these Muslims who have the courage to name Al Qaeda and have the courage unequivocally to condemn terrorism as an immoral act with never a justification. (source)

Jasser concludes, on Muslim support for terrorism:

For example, the study showed that religious observance correlated with an over two times higher rate of justification for suicide bombing in youth under 30. The conclusion can only be that when political Islam meets moral depravity in impressionable immature youth, the ends quickly justify the means. This is a volatile mixture. The mixture of politics and religious fundamentalism can most effectively be countered by defeating political Islam and reclaiming a spiritual, moral, and moderate Islam from the stranglehold of the political agenda of Islamists. This can only be done through a potent anti-Jihadist articulation by moderate anti-Islamist Muslims. Anti-Islamist Muslims need not only to condemn unequivocally the targeting of noncombatants (free of apologetics), but they must also deconstruct the religious legitimacy and the ideology of the Islamic state (political Islam). The study gives hope for this, but it provides few answers.

On American Nationalism:

Political Islam is the problem. Identification of nationality as Muslim is fertile soil for conspiracy theories. The only antidote to the spread of Islamism is a counter-jihad, which includes a strong American nationalism embodied in a belief in liberty, freedom, and pluralism under God. American nationalism alone is not an antidote because Islamists may have theocratic goals for their own American patriotism. American nationalism can defeat Islamism only if it also takes back the mantle of faith from the Islamists with the growth of a moral, spiritual Islam that can combat the immorality of terrorism in a counter-jihad from within a nation under God but anti-Islamist.

The section on conspiracy theories is especially trenchant.

How is it that only 40% of Muslim respondents would identify the fact that Arabs carried out the attacks of 9-11? This cannot be ignored. More specifically, 32% of American Muslims refused to answer and 28% were in complete disbelief that Arabs did it. Again, the more religious the Muslim American, the more likely they are to believe in this conspiracy theory. So if Islam is to provide moral courage for making brave stances against evil, significant concern should be raised that political Islam and its propaganda have a significant impact upon moral clarity.

Political Islam at its core thrives on dishonesty, fabricated enemies, and conspiracies in a world of spin over truth and corruption over morality. At the center of mechanisms of denial, is the creation of fantastic stories, which create false assumptions and feed the ego of those with inferiority complexes. In order to exert control, theocracy (political Islam) must manipulate information and create enemies while uniting the masses in Machiavellian ends – in many ways planting the seeds for fascism.

His final conclusion is something to remember.

If we are going to win this global conflict, analysis of studies like this one should not be overly negative or positive and should be reviewed through the Islamist lens to understand the context—the root cause (Islamism), effect (radicalization), and treatments (a counter-jihad separating spiritual Islam from political Islam). A morally clear spiritual Islam can eliminate politics from the domain of faith, which should be only a personal journey of individual Muslims to God. This process requires ijtihad, which is a re-interpretation of scripture in light of modern day. It also requires imams and scholars with moral courage to denounce each and every suicide operation around the world as immoral, un-Islamic, and barbaric without any justification – ever.

There is much more, including a good explanation for how political Islam leads to fascism, and it’s all worth reading.

Though Aristotle and St. Paul are tied neck and neck I really think that Moses, having set the Jews free from their slavery in Egypt and brought the Ten Commandments to them, thereby setting the ground for the rule of law that we of the European tradition enjoy to this day, is the most important of these figures.

Go and vote for Moses, or your pick, or Moses and your pick. Scroll down in the left column.

The evidence continues to mount that not only was Jimmy Carter the worst American president of the 20th century, but a vile Jew hater, morally rotten to the black heart of his anti-semitic soul, and a bought-and-paid-for friend of terrorists and Jihadists everywhere.

The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration’s refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was “criminal.” (Jerusalem Post)

I can’t say I disagree with Carter when he says that Hamas and Fatah are of the same moral quality. As ex-Muslim, ex-terrorist Walid Shoebat stated on Hannity and Colmes tonight, Mahmoud Abbas is the head of al Aksa Martyrs Brigade and was the architect of the murder of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich 1972. He is every bit as much a terrorist as Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. He’s just not as good at murdering his enemies as Hamas in June 2007 or Hitler’s Nazis in the Night of the Long Knives.

What are people saying around the Blogosphere?

Macsmind has a good anti-Carter rant. Bustard Blog praises Jimmah for speaking truth to power (gag).

Gina Cobb writes:

But the truth is that Carter failed miserably as a president, and there’s no amount of post-presidential posturing that’s going to make his legacy look good.

So now he spends his days catering to Middle Eastern terrorists and urging the rest of the West to join him in racing toward the cliffs of mayhem to dive into the sea. Sensible people and nations know that this is a very bad idea and are not swarming like lemmings in response to Carter’s call. (link)

Israpundit writes:

At a minimum, the US and Israel should insist the charter of PLO and Fatah be amended to demonstrate a peaceful intent. Furthermore he should be required to educate his people for peace, not war. (link)

Michael P.F. van der Galien writes:

Carter, as usual, believes that the Palestinians should be treated as children; they do not have to take responsibility for anything. They are victims. They do not have a say in what is happening to them – it is all Israel’s and America’s fault, according to Carter and his ilk. (link)

John at Powerline writes:

So there you have it: in the perverse world of Jimmy Carter, the United States is a criminal nation that destroys civil liberties, tortures prisoners and oppresses Palestinians. But the Iran-controlled terrorists of Hamas? No problem. (link)

Captain’s Quarters writes:

So let’s get this straight. Bush’s refusal to engage with a terrorist group — one that has long been on the State Department list of outlawed terrorist organizations — is “criminal”. Wouldn’t it literally have been a criminal act to engage with Hamas? Federal law prohibits such direct contacts and the transmission of aid to terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Even more ridiculous, Carter feels that we should applaud the organizational skills of a terrorist group that just murdered its way to the top of the Gaza power structure. He applauds their “superior skills and discipline,” while turning a blind eye to the ways in which they apply them. Rather than scold them for using violence to achieve their political goals, Carter wants the global community to welcome and reward them for it.

Carter started his post-presidential period as a model for retired politicians and statesmen. Had he stayed retired and focused on building homes for the poor, he would have gone some way towards mitigating his feckless presidency. Instead, Carter has become an apologist for terrorists — and in this case, a cheerleader for them. Carter has embarrassed his nation and solidified his status as the appeaser-in-chief who coddled radical Islam at its birth, and seems determined to midwife it at every successive turn. (link)

Jimmy Carter’s absurd remarks really follow from a more fundamental absurdity. The idea that America, Israel and Europe are at peace with the Palestinian Authority, whatever that might be. In fairness, that fiction has been perpetrated by none other than the US, Europe and Israel themselves and encapsulated in one of the most dishonest phrases of modern diplomacy: “the peace process”. If the US were truly “at peace” with the Palestinian Authority — whatever that mean — then Carter would be be perfectly correct in saying that neither the US, Europe nor Israel had any business meddling in the internal affairs of Gaza and the West Bank.

But in the fictive world of Middle Eastern diplomacy, this “peace process” consists entirely of the US, Europe and Israel declaring they are at “peace” with the factions in the Palestinian Authority, while the factions in the Palestinian Authority consistently and steadfastly declare their intention to war upon Israel and the United States. It is really a state of war which a lying diplomacy has managed to represent as a state of peace.

Bereft of this fundamental understanding, or perhaps because he is at the root of this very deceit, Jimmy Carter can argue, with a straight face that the US, Europe and Israel go on to fund the agency of their destruction. To help unify the Palestinian People — including the West Bank — under the legitimate authority of Hamas. To send them monies with when they have already publicly declared their intention to kill every Jew in Israel and any man Jimmy Carter once swore to defend and protect. This is where the absurdity of the premises have led. (link)

Thoughts
The Peace Process is unalloyed Orwellian Newspeak. Wretchard is correct. The Peace Process is a sham meant to hide a fifty-year-old war that the West refuses to acknowledge, in order to protect sources of petroleum.

Fatah and Hamas are feuding brothers in arms playing a game of Good Cop, Bad Cop against the West. They agree that they want to kill all the Jews and Americans but disagree on how to do it. And when they were trapped together in one country, Gaza, without convenient Jews or Americans to murder and terrorize, they decided to kill each other. When competing Jihadists are penned together they end up killing each other. This seems like a situation where the US should be playing both sides against each other to encourage them both to make Gaza as miserable as possible.

Further, instead of continuing to appease retreat whenever Fatah or Hamas unleashes a new terror attack, the Israeli and Western method of negotiation needs to change to the takeaway. Every time they break an agreement something comes off the table. Break several and Israel reoccupies Gaza and throws the Palestinians across the Egyptian border. Break some more and Israel evicts all the Muslims from Bethlehem and replaces them with Christians. And so on.

And finally, none of this will continue to work unless America achieves energy independence from Saudi Arabian petroleum. Nuclear Power, opening up ANWR, drilling for oil and natural gas off Florida and California, building more refineries, getting rid of ethanol subsidies and allowing Brazilian ethanol to be imported, continuing tax credits for solar, wind, and tidal energy, laws to facilitate energy sellback from consumers to electric companies, loosening of restrictive zoning laws to allow people to live closer to their work, even painting roofs white. Until the US and Europe are no longer tethered to oil produced by Jihad-sponsoring regimes an effective defense, let alone counterattack, against the global Jihad will be prohibitively difficult.

One last thing
I have a shameful confession. I voted for Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan in 1980. What happened since then? Two things:

The left-wing monopoly of the news, established in Edward R. Murrow’s wake during the years of the Comintern ascendant after World War II, peaking when Walter Cronkite declared the Tet Offensive, which was a crushing defeat for the NVA, to be a defeat for the US, finally cracked after the World Wide Web crashed the gates and let the real news in without being blocked by the progressive gatekeepers of politically correct reality.

I woke up and realized that pacifism and leftism, which I embraced for much of my life, had terrible unexpected consequences that actually resulted in the exact opposite of what leftists and pacificists wanted to happen. Pacifism ends in greater, more murderous war than militarism, and the pacifists are the first ones who get killed. Socialism doesn’t create equality of results, it creates tyrrany. Liberalism, or equality of opportunity, doesn’t produce equal results, but it allows everyone to achieve whatever they can and prevents tyrrany.

Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn, […] according to a new report by the Iraqi Red Crescent organization, the largest aid group operating in Iraq. (ABC)

My reponse seems to have been deleted:

This is not a trustworthy report. ABC is promoting jihadist propaganda.

This is propaganda just like the three-year-old lies about white phosphorus and American soldiers going on drunken rampages of rape against Iraqi women. It is pure poison aimed at idealistic, naive American minds. It is not true. It is lies. Wake up!

Think Progress is hopping on the fake scandal, shedding crocodile tears, though normally a progressive socialist site would be cheering for any increase in abortions. Yet if they can hypocritically play up perceived hypocrisy in their political opponents they are happy to betray their principles, which can be summed up as “Abortion: Safe, Legal, and Recommended.”

My response to Think Progress, in case they delete it:

I’m surprised to see this presented as if Think Progress disapproves of abortions in Iraq. Aren’t abortions one of the sacred rituals of the progressive feminist PETA voluntary-human-extinction movement?

If you’re frustrated by the body counts coming out of the AP, that only counts US military dead (as if US military personnel were helpless infants playing with IEDs), and the Iraqi Body Count organization, whose intention is to count every terrorist death and murder as a civilian casualty of the US military, then you may want to bookmark the Terrorist Death Watch.

This Father’s Day weekend is the weekend of Golf’s U.S. Open at Oakmont. The course is the most difficult U.S. Open venue and the most difficult course the PGA Tour ever plays. It has a history of identifying great players.

How does Oakmont do it? What sets the greatest of the great golfers apart from the merely great? What allows one player at an incredibly tough tournament like the US Open at Oakmont to win?